TESLA STORY RETOLD OVER AND OVER

DIRECTOR FOLLOWS NARRATIVE SENSORY DEVICE TO TELL STORY

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The energy flips back and forth from the present to the past, to the future and then suddenly pops out of the narrative into contemporary real time.

Director Michael Almereyda uses the Alternating Current as a narrative device for the biopic film about the scientific inventor responsible for much of the electricity in the world.

An ensemble cast portrays the machinations of corporate America at the turn of the 20^thcentury in Tesla (2020).

Ethan Hawke plays a stoic Nikola Tesla. Tesla is portrayed as a serious inventor dedicating his entire life to putting innovative ideas into practice in such a way as to benefit the entire world.

Almereyda uses a voice over narrator to tell the back story. Eve Hewson plays supporting character Anne Morgan, the narrator.

Morgan, the daughter of American financier and banker, J.P. Morgan, pursues a romantic relationship with Tesla. Morgan has her work cut out for her, though, as Tesla is enthralled with the contemplative life and with the idea of his scientific inventions having a global impact.

Hewson transitions back and forth from the narrator to the supporting character so many times that one begins to lose track of where the director has taken the audience in the narrative. 

Hawke also shares the time on screen with Kyle MacLachlan as Thomas Edison, Jim Gaffigan as George Westinghouse and Donnie Keshawarz as J.P. Morgan.

A sub plot has Tesla infatuation with actor Sarah Bernhardt, played by Rebecca Dayan.

The shared time and screen space with multiple biopic characters is back lit with multi-media images that include an obvious blue screen for landscapes as if cinema had not been invented yet and the movie set had been staged for theatre.

Tesla also has a documentary tone, all of which creates a sensory effect as if the director were trying to send electricity from the actors on a live set to the audience watching in theatres.

Almereyada creates several artful scenes, including a fantasy sequence, but a lot of the camera work falls a bit flat.

The director experiments with aesthetics by continually shifting different tone and atmosphere to the point of almost losing the biopic genre for the documentary genre.

Tesla is an interesting story made more appealing with the director’s treatment of the material.

MacLachlan portrays Edison as an assertive, over confident icon of American capitalism. Edison and Tesla have a bit of rivalry with Edison trying to advance the Direct Current, but Tesla’s Alternating Current is eventually adopted throughout the world, and Edison resents losing out.

Dayan portrays Bernhardt as a bit of a butterfly to a candle. Bernhardt was very famous and many more famous people took in her show and wanted to meet the French actress back stage during her world theatre tours.

Almereyada creates one scene back stage as Bernhardt is introduced to Tesla. The two icons just begin to have an interesting intellectual conversation when Edison arrives and takes her away to an after party, with Tesla left behind looking quite disappointed.

Tesla is an interesting film with an approach to the subject that is noteworthy.

Tesla is streaming on Apple TV.